1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to the remote management of nesting strategies and nesting operations for cutting of leather and other irregular materials.
2. Description of Related Art
Cutting of irregularly shaped parts whether for apparel, industrial fabrics, leather, or the like from within a web of material requires arranging individual parts strategically. Parts can be placed or packed in relationship with one another in such a fashion as to optimize the use of the material. This packing operation, commonly known as nesting, is required for cutting of materials regardless of cutting means such as; computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine, die cutting press, or manual (hand) cutting. Nesting gains another level of complexity for materials that are irregular in shape or those that have defects that render certain areas unusable.
During set-up of a CNC machine, a technician will experiment with strategy selection testing multiple strategies over a range of job types in order to converge on a strategy which produces the optimal yield/time balance. This is a time consuming process and only a fraction of the available nesting strategies are evaluated prior to putting a new cutter into production. Once the technician leaves, it is rare that machine operators will take the time to search for better strategies. More often than not, an operator will not deviate from the initial strategy selection. Since it can take several minutes to develop a single nesting strategy, it is not feasible to run multiple serial nesting trials in production to determine if an optimal yield solution was achieved. As a result, operators typically forego development of multiple nesting strategies for comparison and efficient use of material. Therefore, CNC leather processors are wasting material at considerable expense.
What are needed are techniques for improving yield in material cutting operations. The techniques should provide for enhancements for any specific production work order with minimal or no negative impact on material workflow throughput.